Terra Johnson

Name: Terra Johnson

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Grade: 12

School: George Hunter High

Hobbies and Interests: Evangelical Faith, track and cross-country, video games, community service

Appearance: Terra's natural skin color is very pale, though she has a mild farmer's tan from her running. She has an oval face, brown hair, brown eyes, and a mild astigmatism requiring glasses for near-sightedness. Her pearly white teeth that are immaculately well-cared for but slightly crooked since she has steadfastly refused orthodontry as interfering with God's design. Her nose is a little too small, and her ears are a little too big. She usually does not wear make-up or jewelry, with the exception of bracelets. She tends to wear her shoulder-length hair back in a ponytail. She is flat-chested and skinny except for her muscular legs. Stands at 5'4” and weighs in at 116 lbs. She tends to wear tanktops and jeans, weather permitting, and usually layers up if it doesn't. On the day of the abduction, she was wearing a white tank-top, blue jeans, white tennis shoes, and a WWJD sterling silver bracelet.

Biography: Terra Johnson was born to parents Samuel and Emily Johnson, nerdy atheists who were the black sheep among their religious families. Their parents refused to pay for any but religious colleges, so separately the two outcasts convinced their families to send them to the University of Sewannee, a nominally Episcopalian school that offers a liberal arts education. The two met at a gaming club on campus their freshman year, and were married six months after graduation. Samuel helps manage data collection for a call center in Chattanooga with contracts in multiple states, while Emily works for a Tennessee non-profit group that tries to help low-income communities stage theater productions.

As a child, Terra wanted for very little. It took a long time for Sam and Emily to conceive, and pregnancy complications nearly caused a miscarriage and left Emily unable to bear any more children. As such, they showered their only child with all their attention and money. They named her after one of their favorite video game characters, Terra Branford, of Final Fantasy VI.

Terra was an obedient but energetic child, quick to obey her parents and just as quick to flee beyond the range of their hearing. At school and among her peers she was attentive but restless, and rarely took into account what her friends wanted. Any issues caused by losing friends were often mitigated by the fact that she'd inherited her parents love of introverted habits, particularly video games.

Around the age of 10, however, Terra began to feel more isolated from her parents and the world at large. Her intensity and selfishness drove more and more of her friends away, an she found video games to be less and less of a distraction.

She found an answer to her lack of purpose in the Evangelical faith. In spite of their own bitter relationships with their parents, Sam and Emily made sure their daughter had a good relationship with her grandparents, with the grandparents frequently visiting their children in Chattanooga and occasional trips to visit Sam's parents in Knoxville and Emily's parents in Memphis. Terra would sometimes go to her grandparents' respective services during visits, and even before her isolation she found it oddly fascinating. First it was the enthusiastic music combined with the devotion of the congregation, but as she aged, this fascination morphed into something more. In Evangelical service Terra found a sense of enormous purpose that she could not find in her parents' peaceable atheism. One of her few friends in Chatanooga was a member of the the Chattanooga Community for Rebirth in Christ, and invited her to attend a meeting of their Evangelical Youth Service. In the CCRC and EYS, she found everything she'd ever loved about her grandparents' faith and, at a time when she was at her lowest, a loving and supportive community. At the age of 12, she accepted Christ as her savior.

Terra's adoption of her grandparents' faith caused serious family discord. Samuel and Emily accused their respective parents of brainwashing their daughter; the grandparents accused their children of consigning their daughter's soul to hell; and Terra felt as though her parents were trying to control her and refusing to respect her choices. Terra even came to hate her name, seeing it as a sign of how empty her parents' lives are since thy had abandoned Christ.

But in spite of their bad history with their parents, Samuel and Emily's love for their daughter ultimately overcame their fear and resentment. Although her faith is still sometimes a source of friction (particularly with Terra's grandparents), her parents are more supportive of Terra's religion, so long as she still follows their rules.

The CCRC is part of the Every Nation network of Evangelical churches, with an emphasis on outreach and leadership. Terra is part of their Evangelical Youth Service, a group of teens from ages 12-18 who meet 1-2 times a week in order to study the bible, do community service, and spread the word of God. Attending EYS also helped Terra to develop more stable friendships. Terra's difficulty putting others' needs before her own was innately addressed by the EYS' focus on service, and spending time around others who share her cause helped her to soften her edges, both giving her a stable group of friends who wouldn't leave when she rubbed them the wrong way, while also teaching her how to soften her edges a little.

If the Evangelical faith provided her first community, running provided her second. Terra's energetic nature never wavered, but her time with the CCRC gave her a focus she had lacked before. After being inspired by Olympic performances, she started to train herself to run in the 5th grade, and with the extra courage provided by her EYS, joined her middle school track and cross country teams. She excels in particular at the 400m, and is otherwise average. Running gives an outlet for her energy, as well as a clarity that only comes in pushing herself.

While Terra may have grown a little apart from her parents, she still shares their love of videogames, including the one which holds her namesake. Terra prefers sprawling single-player games that give her a sense of constant purpose, especially JRPGS like the Final Fantasy and Tales series. In recent years, she has also added a certain affection for FPS games that she can play with her friends. She is especially a fan of the Halo series up until Bungie's departure, having played them with her friends on her father's Xbox, and has logged hundreds of hours playing both Destiny and Destiny 2.

Although her parents do not approve of her membership in the CCRC, they still support her as best they can, including funding many trips of her trips and driving her to services on Sundays. They try to stress the importance both of respect for other values (theirs for hers, and hers for theirs), and the separation of Church and State.

This last value has been complicated by Terra's staunch pro-life, pro-abstinence-only education stances. The CCRC, as well as her grandparents, were both instrumental in shaping her beliefs that life begins at conception and that sex outside of marriage is inherently sinful. The CCRC adopts an almost-Catholic position in this regard, holding that all sexual acts must be done under the sanctity of marriage and with allowance for the possibility of procreation. Terra's parents are both pro-choice advocates in favor of detailed sex education, and so have argued with their daughter and refused to take her to Church events. Terra believes in the CCRC's views whole-heartedly, and once ran five miles to participate in a pro-life protest outside City Hall.

While Terra and her parents still have their disagreements, they do agree on the importance of a good education. Although her test scores are only average, Terra's grades in general are excellent: she has never slipped below a 3.5 gpa. While she is diligent in completing assignments, however, she often checks out when assignments fail to engage her, doing the bare minimum necessary to get a passing grade with the expectation that she can make up for lower grades down the line. Her highest grades are in the sciences, particularly chemistry and physics. her lowest grades have typically been found in her English classes, since she rarely edits any essays or papers she has to write and hates annotating books or poems.

Now nearly finished with high school, Terra has been accepted into her parents' alma mater. Terra, however, is not certain she wants to attend the same school her parents attended, and has asked them if she can defer admission for a year. She is looking into various service projects abroad through the CCRC, as above all else she does not want to lose the sense of purpose that has been so important to her.

Advantages: Terra is in solid physical shape, with strong legs and tremendous endurance. She is devout and principled, which may allow her to keep a cool head and stick by her principles, and and her time in track and CCRC has given her a wide social circle, with may benefit her in terms of allaying hostilities or making alliances. If her old selfishness were to return, it may also allow her to play ruthlessly.

Disadvantages: Terra is self-interested and struggles to be empathetic, which will complicate any potential alliances. Her good physical condition is somewhat compromised by a lack of upper arm strength. Her strong sense of right and wrong may lead her into danger best avoided.

Designated Number: Female student No. 073

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Designated Weapon: Gas mask

Conclusion: Hey, don't worry about it, G073. Your video game namesake was ALSO brainwashed by an uncaring god. Don't worry too much about being selfish, by the way... it's the only chance I see of you approaching anything resembling victory. - Dennis Lourvey

'The above biography is as written by Grim Wolf. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Grim Wolf

Kills: Mikki Swift

Killed By: Mikki Swift

Collected Weapons: Gas Mask (assigned weapon)

Allies: Mikki Swift, Phillip Olivares, Bree Jones, Zachary Beck

Enemies: Mikki Swift

Mid-game Evaluation: Terra woke by ironically committing blasphemy as she took the Lord's name in vain upon wakening. She ran through the untamed areas of the lower wilderness, and in the process ran right into a robbery scene between victim Desiree Beck and robbers Teresa Rojas and Reuben Walters. Reuben apologetically advised her to turn around, while Desiree started to run and Teresa took off in pursuit. Understanding what was happening Terra forced herself between Teresa and Desiree, furiously and righteously demanding they stop. Desiree was able to escape, but Reuben and Teresa's cynical ire was now directed at Terra, who refused to move, trying to appeal to their better nature. Reuben rejected her moralizing and lunged at her with his knife, which scored a shallow gash on her palm when she tried to defend herself with her hands. She ran, suddenly demoralized as she realized that her words meant nothing and some people intended to commit evil sins anyways.

She ran blindly, as far as the lighthouse, where she collapsed before the door, weak and pathetic. She was let in by Sven Vee and Zachary Beck, she was barely even able to get out what had gone wrong. Sven quietly took his leave, to be replaced by a host of newcomers in Phillip Olivares, Mikki Swift, and Bree Jones, the latter two of whom explained they'd confirmed the death of a classmate. Terra was intimately familiar with Phillip in particular, though the presence of enough familiar faces generally quieted her crying, as everyone else talked and caught up around her. Their presence unsettled her in a different way, she wasn't sure if she could trust any of them, but their calm talking and planning lulled her into being able to believe, for at least a moment, that she could be safe. She chose to go along with the plan as it stood, Mikki marshaling the lot of them into allying and staying together, to keep their shelter safe and to eventually find some means of escape.

Come the early dawn and Terra was still unable to find sleep, despite having come to trust the demeanor of most of her allies. Terra was haunted by half-dreams and uncertainty, not sure if her role was to sacrifice herself as a martyr. Eventually Mikki and Bree left the room they were holed up in, leaving Phillip and Terra, who began to quietly converse. Terra, flush with some jealousy over the other girls, began to spill her more intimate emotions for Phillip, who could only handle the undertones with some discomfort. Terra was almost incredulous, that his moment could have as much impact on her as that of the deaths their class had already endured. His presence emboldened her, and Phillip encouraged her to proceed in his own way. She tried to- and gunfire interrupted. With no hesitation she ran for the sound, and found Bree crumpled to the ground, Mikki holding a gun. Terra bullrushed Mikki and had her on the ground, Mikki's panic firing did not deter Terra and she eventually liberated the gun with a bit of clever thinking, releasing the gun then striking Mikki, to use surprise to slack Mikki's grip.

Terra had the gun, and did not hesitate to fire. She felt alive, righteous, believing that she'd finally found her purpose given by God. But she realized too late that Phil had been struck by Mikki's spray and pray. She ran to him, praying desperately for him, but he was already gone when she reached him. She tried to confess to his corpse, but was lit up by Mikki's retaliation- Terra had let the gun slip her mind, in her panic. Terra fell as well, only coldly comforted as she died by thinking it had also been part of God's plan.

Post-Game Evaluation: Love knows no end, and you will find Him waiting for you in your next life. You will find peace and reward for your righteousness. - Boris Johnson

Memorable Quotes: "God sees you. He knows what you're doing. Every sin you're contemplating, and the ones you're trying to commit, and you're just going to do it?!" - While telling Teresa and Reuben to back down.

"Can I say something...kinda scary?" - In reference to her feelings for him, so on.

Other/Trivia

 * Terra is the first person to die in Version 7 with a kill.
 * Terra is also the first person in Version 7 to kill someone with a kill

Threads
Below is a list of threads containing Terra, in chronological order.

V7:
 * LMAO they made Fortnite into a real thing!
 * Just keep breathin' and breathin' and breathin'
 * Children of Cain

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Terra Johnson. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * So right off the bat I think it's important to note that I had a pretty different experience of Terra from most of the site because I knew where her story was headed the whole time, and had my fingers in the pie as it were. That said, I think that Grim did a very nice job taking a character with no Pregame who was doomed to be an early out and giving her complexity, nuance, thematic resonance, and a sense of a deeper internal world.

Terra's first thread, the one thread before her major (and terminal) plotline really clicks into gear, is nice because it lets us see a collection of individually quirky characters thrown together in a comedy of errors. Terra is, if anything, the serious voice off which Desiree, Teresa, and Reuben can play their quirkier narratives, but at the same time Terra's given a lot of agency and oomph, intervening in a would-be robbery and pulling the attention onto herself. It's a great beat, closer to heroism than much of what we see in V7—but at the same time, it is to a degree undercut when she still finds herself forced to flee, injured. We see right from the start that, for all Terra's ambitions of doing right, reality may not be entirely cooperative.

As to the lighthouse scene itself, one of the biggest things Grim brought to the project was the human element. His special skill is, if his thread partners are amenable, creating all these little points of connection and everyday details and quiet plots bubbling in the background that really bring a scene to life as more than just a fight or whatever, and he deserves a ton of credit for being in peak form here. Terra serves as a great linchpin for the escalation and disintegration, and provides a lot of the thematic oomph. Like one of her handler's other early outs, I think she's a piece to be proud of. - MurderWeasel